WhatsApp allows real-money gaming ads in India, but no alcohol ads

Facebook parent company Meta on Friday updated its WhatsApp Business messaging policy, to let firms from regulated sectors such as real-money online gaming and over-the-counter drugs to use the platform to send advertisements or promotional messages in India.

The new policy requires businesses to make sure that the messages being sent adhere to standards set by a particular country’s regulatory authority, legal age restrictions and geographic obligations. Technical measures are also to be maintained.

India is among countries where messages selling alcohol will not to be allowed. Also, companies in the regulated sector are barred from using the WhatsApp Business app to send messages about or provide commerce information on selling or buying goods and services.

Meta’s decision is part of a larger change in the business messaging policy that the company plans to introduce, while it opens up WhatsApp to select regulated sectors in a few nations.

WhatsApp is currently the most widely-used messaging app in the world with more than 2 billion active users globally on a daily basis, and with over 500 million users in India.

The revamp in policy will come as a big boost for WhatsApp at a time when Meta looks for new ways to increase the scope of monetisation.

WhatsApp was founded in February 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, former employees of Yahoo!, after Koum purchased an iPhone, which prompted the duo to create an app that would facilitate online communication. In this way, the app was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California. Subsequently WhatsApp was bought by Facebook in February 2014 for around US$19.3 billion. By 2016, the app became the primary method of online communication all over the world, and particularly in the Indian subcontinent and most of Europe.